"What a rash resolve! But I confess that I preferred to have you stay at home with me."

"You have spoiled the whole evening for me."

"And you spoiled mine. So we are quits," he replied, laughingly.

"No, we are not. How can you turn sacred things into a jest?"

"I was possessed to see a smile light up the awful gravity of your face, and I feel amply repaid in that I succeeded. It was a delicious bit of sunshine on a cloudy day."

"And I am provoked at myself beyond measure, that I could have laughed like a silly child."

"But did you not like the first tune I sang? 'Old Hundred' was selected in deference to the wishes of the meeting."

"No, I did not like it. It was not suitable to the place and words.

Though I never heard it before, its somewhat slow movement did not prevent it from smacking of something very foreign to a prayer-meeting."

"A most happy and inspired expression. Many a time I have smacked my lips when it was being sung over the best of wine."

"Was it a drinking-song, then?" she asked, quickly.

"What will you do with me if I say it was?"

"Mr. Gregory, I would not have thought this even of you."

"Even of me! That is complimentary. I now learn what a low estimate you have of me. But see how unjust you are. The musical commissaries of the church militant are ever saying, 'It's a pity the devil should have all the good music,' and so half the Sunday-school tunes, and many sung in churches, have had a lower origin than my drinking-song. I a.s.sure you that the words are as fine as the air. Why have I not as good a right to steal a tune from the devil as the rest of them?"

"It's the motive that makes all the difference," said Annie. "But I fear that in this case the devil suffered no loss."

"I'm sure my motive was not bad. I only wished to see a bonny smile light up your face."

Before she could reply the carriage stopped at Mr. Walton's door, and with Mr. Gregory she pa.s.sed into the cosey parlor. Her father did not immediately join them.

As Gregory looked at her while she took off her wraps, he thought, "By Jove! she's handsome if she is not pretty."

In fact Annie's face at that time would have attracted attention anywhere. The crisp air had given her a fine color. Her eyes glowed with suppressed excitement and anger, while the firm lines about the mouth indicated that when she spoke it would be decidedly. In spite of herself the audacity, cleverness, and wickedness of this stranger had affected her greatly. As he threw off his moodiness, as he revealed himself by word and action, she saw that he was no ordinary character, but a thorough man of the world, and with some strange caprices. The suspicion crossed her mind that he might be not only in peril himself but also a source of danger. She had determined during the ride home that even though he meant no slur upon sacred things he should carry his mocking spirit no more into them. Therefore, after a moment's thought, she turned toward him with a manner of mingled frankness and dignity, and said, "Mr. Gregory, I regret what has occurred this evening. I have a painful sense of the ludicrous, and you have taken unfair advantage of it. I am usually better and happier for going to our simple little meeting, but now I can think of the whole hour only with pain. I think I am as mirth-loving as the majority of my age, and perhaps more so. I say truly that my heart is very light and happy.

But, Mr. Gregory, we look at certain things very differently from you.

While I would not for a moment have you think that religion brings into my life gloom and restraint--quite the reverse--still it gives me great pain when anything connected with my faith is made a matter of jest.

These things are sacred to us, and I know my father would feel deeply grieved if he understood you this evening. Do you not see? It appears to us differently from what it does to you and perhaps to the world at large. These things are to us what your mother's memory is to you. I would sooner cut off my right hand than trifle with that."

Gregory had been able to maintain his quizzical look of mischief till she named his mother; then his face changed instantly. A flush of shame crossed it, and after a moment, with an expression something like true manhood, he stepped forward and took Annie's hand, saying, "Miss Walton, I sincerely ask your pardon. I did not know--I could not believe that you felt as you do. I will give you no further reason to complain of me on this ground. I hope you will forgive me."

She at once relented, and said:

"'Who by repentance is not satisfied Is not of heaven nor earth.'

There is an apt quotation from your favorite Shakespeare."

"You seem a delightful mixture of both, Miss Walton."

"If you were a better judge, sir, you would know that the earthly ingredient is too great. But that is in your favor, for I am sufficiently human to make allowance for human folly."

"I shall tax your charity to the utmost."

As Gregory sat in his arm-chair recalling the events of the day before retiring, he thought: "Well, my attempt has failed signally. While by her involuntary smile she showed that she was human, she has also managed this evening to prove that she is perfectly sincere in her religion, and to render it impossible for me to a.s.sail her in that direction again. As the old hymn goes, I must 'let her religious hours alone.' But how far her religion or superst.i.tion will control her action is another question. I have learned both at home and abroad that people can be very religious and very sincere in matters of faith and ceremony, and jealous of any hand stretched out to touch their sacred ark, but when through with the holy business they can live the life of very ordinary mortals. This may be true of Miss Walton. At any rate I have made a mistake in showing my hand somewhat at a prayer-meeting, for women are so tenacious on religious matters. Deference, personal attention, and compliments--these are the irresistible weapons. These inflate pride and vanity to such a degree that a miserable collapse is necessary. And yet I must be careful, for she is not like some belles I know, who have the swallow of a whale for flattery. She is too intelligent, too refined, to take compliments as large and glaring as a sunflower. Something in the way of a moss-rose bud will accomplish more. I will appear as if falling under her power; as if bewitched by her charms. Nothing pleases your plain girls more than to be thought beautiful. I shall have her head turned in a week. I am more bent than ever on teaching this little Puritan that she and I live upon the same level."

Sat.u.r.day morning dawned clear and bracing, and the gra.s.s was white with h.o.a.r-frost. The children came in to breakfast with glowing cheeks and hair awry, crying excitedly in the same breath that they "had been to the chestnut trees and that Jack had opened the burrs all night."

In answer to their clamorous pet.i.tions a one-o'clock dinner was promised, and Aunt Annie was to accompany them on a nutting expedition with Jeff as pioneer to thresh and club the trees.

"Can I go too?" Gregory asked of the children.

"I suppose so," said Johnny, rather coldly; "if Aunt Annie is willing."

"You can go with me," said kind-hearted little Susie.

"Now I can go whether Aunt Annie is willing or not," said Gregory, with mock defiance at the boy.

He glanced at his aunt's face to gather how he should take this, but she settled the matter satisfactorily to him by saying, "You shall be my beau, and Mr. Gregory will be Susie's."

"Good, good!" exclaimed Susie. "I've got a beau already;" and she beamed upon Gregory in a way that made them all laugh.

"'Coming events cast their shadows before,' you perceive, Miss Walton,"

said he, meaningly.

"Sometimes the events themselves are but shadows," she replied, dryly.

"Now that is severe upon the beaux. How about the belles?" he asked, quickly.

"I have nothing to say against my own s.e.x, sir."

"That is not fair. Of course I can say nothing adverse."

"If you should say what you think, I fear we should be little inclined to cry with Shylock, 'A Daniel come to judgment!'"

"You have a dreadful opinion of me, Miss Walton. I wish you would teach me how I can change it."

"You discovered so much in a chestnut burr the day you came I should not be surprised if you could find anything else there that you wish to know."

"I shall not look in burrs for chestnuts this afternoon, but for something else far more important."

Gregory spent the forenoon quietly in his own room reading, in order that he might have all the vigor possible for the ramble. And to Annie, as housekeeper, Sat.u.r.day morning brought many duties.

By two o'clock the nutting expedition was organized, and with Jeff in advance, carrying a short ladder and a long limber pole, the party started for the hills. At first Johnny, oppressed with his dignity as Aunt Annie's "beau," stalked soberly at her side, and Susie also claimed Gregory according to agreement, and insisted on keeping hold of his hand.

He submitted with such grace as he could muster, for children were tiresome to him, and he wanted to talk to Miss Walton, without "little pitchers with large ears" around.

Annie smiled to herself at his half-concealed annoyance and his wooden gallantry to Susie, but she understood child life well enough to know that the present arrangement would not last very long. And she was right. They had hardly entered the shady lane leading to the trees before a chipmonk, with its shrill note of exclamation at unexpected company, started out from some leaves near and ran for its hole.

Away went Aunt Annie's beau after it, and Susie also, quite oblivious of her first possession in that line, joined in the pursuit. There was an excited consultation above the squirrel's retreat, and then Johnny took out his knife and cut a flexible rod with which to investigate the "robber's den."